Chris Camozzi Sounds Off on His Signing with GLORY Kickboxing

You’ve probably already heard that 30-year-old, 11-year MMA veteran, Chris Camozzi is making the switch from UFC to GLORY kickboxing. But there is an underlying question that needs to be asked and answered: Will more UFC fighters follow suit and make the switch as well?

“I’m not leaving MMA, but I am going to make a little bit of a switch to GLORY kickboxing. I’m pretty excited about that. I’ve always been a huge fan of kickboxing. I’ve been a big fan of GLORY. Anybody that follows me knows that I go to a ton of their shows. So, we finally came to a deal and I’m excited to start my kickboxing career and put MMA on the side a little bit.” – Camozzi

Asking myself this very same question, I immediately think: for a striker, if there is a similar amount of money to be made, why not? There are so many different disciplines in professional MMA and certain style matchup better (or worse) against each other. When a fighter starts to lose based off of stylistic mismatches, do they start thinking, “I’m stuck in their realm, not the other way around. Do they have the strategic high-ground?”

Such may be the case for Chris Camozzi, who lost his last three UFC fights in a row. This had to weigh in heavily on his decision to take a multi-fight deal with GLORY.

“All of my losses in MMA have come from getting wrestled and grappling.”

-Camozzi

A talented striker like Camozzi (described as a rangy, dangerous Muay Thai striker) who has the opportunity to rekindle his career on a more level playing field should take an opportunity like this and perhaps with a bit of success, more striking specialist will follow.

In fact, Chris isn’t the first to make the big switch. His new Factory X teammate and training partner, Dustin Jacoby made the jump a while back.

Upon perusing the MMA forums there seems to be a vast amount of fan support from the MMA-side. We found one thread where Chris Camozzi is actually present and the members of this particular forum seem to playfully support him in his cross-over to GLORY. The topic of Jacoby being a former opponent but moreover, great friend and teammate did come up and he even threw a lighthearted jab at ‘Jacare’ Souza when a forum member joked about Camozzi leaving “Just when Jacare is at his ‘chinniest’.”

Camozzi replied, “Lol. I’m waiting for him in the ring.”

A longtime avid fan of GLORY, Camozzi’s twitter feed is now full of GLORY and other kickboxing tweets and retweets, which makes sense as he has gone on record saying that, right now, he is 100% focused on kickboxing.

The middleweight could debut for GLORY as soon as December and has stated that he is there to fight the best and won’t turn down a fight. When Chris Camozzi does step into the ring, there will surely be odds on the event. So, if you are interested in taking a punt at the fight, you should review Bovada first.

The fans seem to support this move. Many of the fighters from both the UFC and GLORY seem to support this move as well. GLORY itself reported that they are very excited to have Chris Camozzi join their ranks … and his departure from the UFC with no fights left on his contract was quite amicable.

If Camozzi is anyway setting a boiler-plate or template for combat sports athlete cross-overs, it is a good one and I would expect that other MMA fighters come across to join the striking warriors in select top-flight professional kickboxing organizations like GLORY and K-1.